Only the middle class and above think that Class isn't a thing any more.

[FindingMeno]

Just that really.
If you're working class it's as plain as the nose on your face.

Read Jilly Cooper's 'Class' it's an eye opener and very funny.

Neurodiversity. Mental health issues. Trauma. To name but 3.

@ichundich "The thing is - if you have all of these, then you're not likely to be poor. Or if you are, it's hard to understand why you're not making more of them"

Being poor or not is irrelevant. It's about access, resources, confidence, and knowing how things work.

That was written ages ago! {1979} I remember it in the library - Reviews on Amazon say it is now very dated.

I do remember her saying that Whippets were 'U' and Greyhounds were naff- I'd have to disagree there- Greyhounds are lovely!

It probably needs an update.

Her name is Angela ‘Rayner’. Please can you at least get her name right? It’s just basic respect. I don’t think either her or Keir Starmer or Jeremy Corbyn’s names are particularly hard to spell, but I have seen them misspelled so many times on here. Somehow, people managed to spell every other politician’s name right. Please can we spell their names correctly too?

Or in my case a disabled child who hasn't attended school for a number of years.

Funny how people say "you can do anything if you try" and when someone like Angela Rayner does it's all "oh, I didn't mean like that!

I love it and, being from a lower middle class background, can confirm it's bang on. She needs to write an update though, analysing such signifiers as grubby tousle- haired moppets in wellies and tutus, French bulldogs in shiny white Range Rovers and Live, Laugh, Love signs...

I've really picked up on posters that have said about not even knowing how to guide your children to improve their lot when you're working class.

When it turns out that the well-regarded Unis put a lot of emphasis on the extra curricular activities a candidate has done. I guess this is cultural capital? Something you never hear of until you realise your dc's don't have it

When your dc's ask what jobs are well-paying and how to get into them, and you don't know.

When you have no idea about investments, mortgages, or really have never been taught any financial literacy.

When the language used by highly educated people is inaccessible and you can't communicate on an equal footing.

A few examples and there's more I am sure.

Another:
When your dc's job opportunities ( or your own) are restricted by public transport until they can earn enough to learn to drive.

And:

When there is no money to outsource tasks around the home or additional childcare so you can work more.

When you can't undertake training to better yourself as you need to bring in a wage.

When health issues aren't dealt with promptly always as you can't take time from the children or work and obviously can't go private.

When computer skills aren't part of your work so it's harder to access things that involve an increasingly higher level of computer literacy.

All these are aspects of wc life imo, that the mc just don't ordinarily appreciate are difficulties.

But once again, it comes down to class. I don't live in the UK and socialise/have friendships with all sorts of people, there isn't so much of this "mixing with people like us" nonsense.

Class is a tricky one. I’m definitely from a very working class background. My mum decided I shouldn’t take up my grammar school place as it wasn’t for ‘us’ when I really wanted those opportunities.
I’m split on the issue though because after leaving school at 16 and taking a very low paid job I then took A levels at night school and subsequently went to Uni as a mature student. This makes me not buy directly into the idea you can’t ‘move’ as anyone can easily study and gain qualifications if they put time and effort in. My dad was extremely worried when I gave up a job to go to Uni (cautioned against it) so I get it sometimes takes going against the norm.
When I think back I have been looked down upon a few times for not being posh enough, or not being Oxbridge once, but I have also been really fortunate on many more occasions to be the ‘northern lass’, especially by northern bosses in London.
I’ve also seen ‘working class’ discrimination against people deemed to be ‘southern poofs’ or ‘rich x’s’.
I guess I do think classism does still exist but I know by my own experience opportunities are there if you are willing to take exams in your own time (if you didn’t at school) and push yourself.

@Firethehorse "I guess I do think classism does still exist but I know by my own experience opportunities are there if you are willing to take exams in your own time (if you didn’t at school) and push yourself"

The big point is that in order to do that you have to be exceptional. Exceptional people do well. If you're middle class you don't have to be exceptional.

@Firethehorse opportunities are definitely there but you need to be in a good financial position to take them. Both of my parents went to 'night school' and got degrees later on whilst working. It was much cheaper then (maybe even free?). Under legacy benefits a single mum could go to university and this was counted as work commitments, ie you didn't have to job seek. From what I understand now of UC, this isn't possible. Approx 40% of people on UC work, so that rules them out from further study to 'move up'. The cost of living has dramatically risen, particularly for those in private rentals, so working less than full time isn't an option for the less well off.

I will never, ever forget that feeling when I rocked up at university in 1991 and realised that all my peers had been interrailing round Europe that Summer and were County level at Sports and had gold Duke of Edinburghs award. I'd never even heard of DofE and had spent that summer watching my elderly father die.

Opportunities for me never were on my mum's radar although she was a far better granny than she was a mother and spent what little she had in later life on theatre trips and holidays for my boys. I however left home at 18 with my dead dad's clothes because they were all I had and lived in my overdraft until I was nearly 30.

When I was at Oxford, one of the first things that fascinated me was peers who were planning career paths in jobs I’d never heard of. I don’t just mean people were joining magic circle law firms (though I wouldn’t have know what they were either) or heading for City jobs, I mean meeting people who were planning to work in art restoration, or become opera directors, or specialise in underwater archaeology. (Three real examples of people I’m still in touch with.)

You have to know these careers exist in order to want to do them. You have to have have gone to art galleries or museums as a child, realised that the artefacts/paintings/frescoes need restoration, and that trained people do it, or gone to the opera and realised that they are directed by people with music and/or theatre training and who can liaise with the soloists, chorus, conductor, set designer etc etc.

These peers had parents and family friends who worked in academia, journalism, art, politics, publishing, broadcasting, or who wrote novels or were landscape gardeners or actors. Not necessarily well-off, but with lots of social and cultural capital. Whereas the ‘poshest’ job I was aware of growing up (if you left aside my teachers, who were burnt-out wrecks from trying to keep order in a rough school) was ‘working in an office’ after some kind of secretarial course, because you didn’t have to stand up all day or get your hands dirty.

Good point. My parents (from NE England where I am from) became a teacher and a doctor respectively - both state employed roles after a state grammar school and both regarded locally as very good jobs. Indeed when my mother's cousin became a dentist that was very successful (as indeed it is for anyone - it hard to get into and qualify into).

My siblings and I all did career specific degrees too - I an LLB and today still remain a lawyer, sibling a doctor etc and I still think that can be a good plan. I am glad 4 of my children are solicitors (last 2 qualified this year and I remain very pleased), not because we are badly off but because whatever they might choose to do later they have that to fall back upon and I think it's a pretty good start, whereas had they left university to become a novelist I would have been more concerned as to whether they could feed themselves (and I write as someone who makes a fair bit of money from legal writing but made almost zero from various books I wrote when I was much younger - so failed novelist here perhaps....)

Universities no longer putting much, if any, weight on non subject related extra curricular activities is a huge and welcome step.

A big part of the issue is people mistake their class for how they grew up culturally. There has been a lot of class movement in the past two generations. Many people whose family background two generations ago, or even one, was working class, are now solidly middle or even upper middle class.

So many class signifiers have died out, even in working class families, and on the other hand some feel they "belong" to the working class even though they are university educated professionals.

Some jobs also have significantly changed their class status.

But the reality is, if you are a middle class university educated person, or a civil servant in a union, vs a person working as a labourer or a cafe worker (no union either) you are in a very different position in life. Not only in terms of just economics but also stability and power to influence your situation.

Yes, absolutely, though the misconception that this is still key is something I see on here fairly often.

@TempestTost, well, yes, but the university-educated professional who grew up dirt poor, and who is still surrounded by close relatives who work in minimum wage, unskilled jobs is still in a very different position to the similarly-educated professional who grew up in the UMC with surgeon parents, even if day to day life looks similar.

One of the things I'm realising now as my parents, and the parents of my peers hit their eighties, if still living, is the difference social class and occupation makes to your health as you age.

DH and I are lucky enough to have all four parents still (aged between 79 and 82), but whereas the similarly-aged parents of our friends, who are retired lawyers, academics, journalists, medics etc are doing things like regretfully deciding it will be their last skiing season and are in very good shape, ours are in much worse shape.

Combination of physically-demanding manual jobs (my father has terrible back problems from heavy lifting for decades, and has limited use of his hands because arthritis seems to be attacking fingers that he crushed in an industrial accident in the 70s, and FIL is similar), poor nutrition when younger (especially in the case of MIL and DM, in families were limited protein was kept for the working men), and poor healthcare, far too many pregnancies in the case of my DM and MIL, or reluctance to access healthcare when older.

And the difference in life expectancy in the richest and poorest areas in the UK is shocking, as is how long you can expect to live in reasonable health.

Golden rules of growing up in our household. Don’t label yourself, (including any kind of “class” label), make the most of your opportunities, don’t be frightened of trying new things, don’t let others put you off following your dreams, don’t be ashamed of your accent or background.

Confidence, good decision making skills, and a drive to achieve. (Admittedly, having parental networking of the right sort can help as well.)

@Getitwright You do know it's not always that easy, don't you?

Of course I do. But it’s a ruddy good place to start. I didn’t come from a well off background, but I had parents who worked hard, were aspirational, encouraging and open to trying new things. Dad worked in the Steel industry, worked his way up, but he read a lot, loved poetry and history. Mum was a SAHM, but she was creative, I learned about good food, how to do as many practical things at home, as the academic things at school. That school was state, last of single sex, so it was all girls. I knew what I wanted to do before I left there, so did the subjects and exams that would help. Same with six form (which I loathed), then I went to Uni. Didn’t end up doing career I thought I would, but it wasn’t too much of a leap. I did industry sponsored exams to progress my career. Got involved, interested in equine sports, as did my OH, mixed with lots of different types of people. I refused to be held back by anything if I wanted to do something, and worked all the harder to raise the money to do so.

I suppose I could say I was lucky, or maybe I made some very wise choices, but a lot of that luck was sheer hard work and learning.

Well then I'm working class then! I don't have a class tho...my parents brought me up to work hard, and save my money. What class am I?